Dutch tram company tried to claim back Nazi expenses

AMSTERDAM’S public transport operator demanded payment from Germany two years after the Second World War ended for the unpaid costs of trams used to transport Jews, including Anne Frank, to concentration camps.

A total of 63,000 Jews were deported from Amsterdam during the German occupation of the Netherlands, with the Nazis hiring trams to take Jews, including the famous diarist and her family, to the city’s train station.

The Gestapo in The Hague paid the GVB, Amsterdam’s municipal public transport operator, 10 guilders per tram and 12.50 guilders for night-time journeys. The GVB sent monthly invoices for the 900 tram rides but not all were paid before the Netherlands was liberated in May 1945.

The invoices were discovered in an archive by Willy Lindwer, a filmmaker, and Guus Luijters, a writer, who said the company had profited from the forced transport of Jews. One of the invoices had a note attached that proved the GVB was still trying to recover unpaid money as late as 1947, two years after the end of the war.

“A collection agency was then called in to try for two years to recover the 80 guilders. I found that really shocking,” Mr Luijters said.

The researchers also found the bill for the last of 900 tram rides on Aug 8 1944. Anne Frank and her family were on the lists of people deported from Amsterdam’s Central Station that day.

“They were first transferred from the former prison at Weteringschans to Central Station by tram,” Mr Lindwer told the NOS state broadcaster.

On Sept 3 1944, the Franks were sent from the Westerbork transit camp to Auschwitz. In November 1944, Anne was transferred to Bergen-belsen, where she died in early 1945.

The invoices detail the equipment used, the day, time and cost of the tram ride, and have been matched to the GVB’S accounts.

Dutch Railways apologised in 2005 for its role in the deportation of Jews from the Netherlands. It promised to pay compensation in 2018.

The GVB has not yet done so, but it will face demands from Jewish groups for compensation, potentially in the form of a fund against anti-semitism, or a monument.